


Unguarded Evening

by vayleen



Category: Sailor Moon - All Media Types
Genre: Christmas, F/M, Post-Series, Pre-Crystal Tokyo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-25
Updated: 2012-12-25
Packaged: 2017-12-08 19:40:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/765243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vayleen/pseuds/vayleen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The air was filled with the white noise of people exclaiming over the experience.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unguarded Evening

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Satine86](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Satine86/gifts).



The crowd was active, bustling. The air was filled with the white noise of people exclaiming over the experience. Yukio brushed by them all, noting wryly the flushed, happy faces of many couples reliving the experience of the opera together. Oddly, he was jealous, even though under normal circumstances Rei wouldn’t smile up at him that way anyway. Not in public. 

Yet she surprised him by storming out of the auditorium ahead of him. As soon as Almaviva and Rosina were singing the end chords to _Amore e fede eternal,_ Rei was up from her seat and leaving. Yukio was stunned, and kept clapping for a beat too long, before he started following her. But by then the lobby of the opera house was full of people, and he couldn’t see her.

Frustrated, Yukio pulled at his tie and ran his fingers through his blond hair, caring less about appearances than a moment ago. He did care enough to smile politely and greet the opera goers that o recognized him from work, and he wished in those times that Rei would appear next to him so that everyone would see the two of them together.

_She hates it when I think this way,_ Yukio thought. _That is what got me into this mess._

“I’m not a prize you can parade in front of your colleagues! That’s how my father treated my mother!”

Rei’s angry voice echoed in his mind and he searched for her.

Yukio wished there was a way he could prove to her he wasn’t going to turn out like her father. Hino Takashi was a man he admired and enjoyed working for because he was a brilliant politician. Though it puzzled the older man when Yukio insisted that he would continue to work at the Hikawa shrine.

“He thinks your world is divided,” Rei had said. “So do I.”

Yukio wished he could prove them both wrong. Especially Rei. Yukio believed in a disciplined lifestyle, and that included a dedicated spiritual life. But also...

He sighed. There was the more selfish reason why he would continue to work at the Hikawa jinja. Three lifetimes of longing and the need to be close to her.

Yukio was about to check and see if Rei picked up her coat and left without him when he noticed a familiar head of dark hair out of the corner of his eye. He turned and saw Rei sitting at the window. She was perched at one of the bar tables positioned sporadically around the lobby for idle patrons to sip imbibements during intermissions. Since she was looking out the window, and didn’t notice him yet, Yukio took a moment to study her.

Gods, she was beautiful.

He took in the way her long, straight hair cascaded down her back, how some of it spilled over her shoulder since her head was turned. He admired the dangling earrings she wore, how they brought out the length of her neck. Her long, creamy legs, brought out by the short skirt of her dress and high heels, were crossed at the ankles and curled into the bar chair. Yukio selfishly filed away this somewhat unguarded picture of her for later, noting the unhappy stiffness of her air. She was still very angry. Resigned, he approached the chair next to her.

* * *

Rei heard him before she saw him, recognizing the way sound of the way he walked over the drum of many other footfalls in the background. She felt herself involuntarily stiffen and forced herself to relax a little bit before turning to look at him. She was angry to see the indifferent expression on his handsome features, a mask he wore almost always in public. She knew it was partially her fault that he felt the need to be so guarded now. She shouldn’t have left so suddenly at the end of the opera, no matter how angry she was. She hated making scenes, even more than Yukio did, and she tended to look down on couples that did so. So she would understand if he was angry with her, but that didn’t excuse how…coldly Yukio treated her sometimes.

Rei didn’t want loads of public displays of affection, because she thought that was just as disgusting a spectacle as couples that made angry scenes. But she was envious of the easy warmth she saw in her friends that were couples, like Usagi and Mamoru or Minako and Kazuo. If Yukio was supposed to be the love of her life, why did it feel so awkward sometimes to be in the same room together?

He sat down in the chair next to her and looked up, waiting for her to say something.

Instead, Rei turned back to the window.

The glass was starting to fog. “It’s snowing,” she heard herself say.

In her mind’s eye, she could see Yukio’s mouth curl up, so slightly no one else would notice the break in his seemingly indifference. “How rare,” he commented.

_Snow for December,_ Rei thought. She thought of Usagi’s joy at possibly having a white Christmas and felt a stirring of light in her otherwise dark thoughts. A light he must have noticed.

“Are we really going to talk about the weather?” Yukio asked her.

Rei turned back to look at him, and wished she hadn’t. His face had barely changed but there was an intensity in his blue eyes. He was always this way. Earnest, intense, yet calculating, with a slight air of danger in his air. It made her breath catch and her chest tighten, and if this was the agony of being in love, then Rei was right when she said before that she never wanted it to happen to her. It was too much to bear.

However she must have looked, she must not have been hiding her feelings, because the coldness started melting from his features. She could see surprise and hope as Yukio reached out to her. “Rei-“ he said softly, catching a lock her hair in his fingers and brushing her cheekbone as he pushed it over her ear.

“Why can’t you say it, Yukio?” Rei whispered. 

He stiffened, and she cringed. They were in a public place and he was uncomfortable. But she felt reckless in that moment. The pain in her chest was keeping her awake every night, and each day without sleep etched away at her control and the fires inside her burned to the surface.

“I’ve already told you how I feel about you,” Rei continued, “But you can’t do the same for me?”

“You know how I feel about you,” Yukio said.

“But you never said it,” Rei said. She searched his face, but Yukio just looked stubborn and confused.

“I sometimes hate these events,” Rei said. “There are other ways to experience culture and art without having to endure all of the political nonsense. But I attend them because I was born in a privileged family. But they are filled with useless people with their useless goals-“

“They are part of our future,” Yukio interjected. “I am one of the future king’s four heavenly guard, and my province includes Japan, includes these useless people you so easily dismiss. They are the current leaders and they will look to my guidance when the world changes.”

Rei sniffed. She had heard this speech before. She didn’t know why she wanted to provoke him this much. She only wanted him to say something real and true to her.

“The reason you don’t like this kind of society is because you think they are all like you father, but you are wrong. They are not. I am not,” Yukio said.

“I know you aren’t,” Rei said, sighing. She was exhausted. “You do the things you do out of a sense of duty and passion that I relate to. You are a good person-“

Yukio turned away, coldly.

“You are,” Rei insisted. “I know you think you aren’t, that you say you always have an ulterior motive, that you never do anything that won’t be beneficial to you. And you put on this indifferent façade, but it’s wrong. You are a giving man, Yukio. That is why I fell in love with you,” she said quietly, turning back to the window.

His hands were warm when they reached for her face, and turned her back towards him. Rei looked at him, his earnest face, his storming blue eyes, and knew she would cry if she had to keep looking at him.

“I don’t deserve you,” Yukio said, his eyes willing her to believe it.

“You’re wrong,” Rei said. A tear ran down her cheek, on his fingers. “You’re so wrong.”

“I don’t. You are a passionate, powerful woman of grace that makes me feel strong and weak at the same time. I don’t deserve you, but I need you. I don’t deserve you, but I worship you. I am a selfish man for making you love me.”

“Stupid Yukio,” Rei said. “You didn’t make me do anything. I chose you,” Rei said, pulling his hands from her face and clasping them with hers close to her heart. “I choose you.”

Yukio held himself so very still that Rei wondered if he stopped breathing. He looked at their clasped hands intently. In turn, Rei forced herself to hold still as well, restraining her fingers from stroking his. “Look at me,” she demanded when she couldn’t stand his stillness anymore.

He did. “You want me to tell you how I feel? Even though you know? Even though you’ve known since time began, since I’ve been chasing you lifetime after lifetime-“

“Yes,” Rei said.

“Well, I’m not doing it here,” Yukio said, pulling himself up, and Rei along with him. Without breaking contact, he firmly kept one of her hands in his and they walked through the crowd, side by side because neither wanted to give the other the lead, and neither wanted to follow.

* * *

Yukio and Rei went straight for the coat check, only giving acquaintances a passable polite nod as they went. He had helped her into her coat, helped hold her brilliant long hair aside as she slipped it over her shoulders and clasped the buttons, relishing the feeling of it falling through his fingers and it fell back over her back. It was details like this that he enjoyed after waiting for her for so long.

They left the opera house hands clasped, walking briskly down the stone stairs. It was snowing and Yukio marveled at the way the flakes contrasted with her dark hair, and the way her violet eyes sparkled in the city lights, and then she looked at him with those eyes. They were fierce, and loving, and that look could destroy and rebuild him in a moment.

“Where are we going?” she asked him.

“Where do you want to go?” 

“Anywhere,” she said. “Anywhere with you, Yuki.”

It was the wrong moment, but it was as if he could no longer contain his feelings. They had been fighting all night, they didn’t enjoy a minute of the show together, and she was always so angry whenever she declared her feelings to him. He never wanted to be angry when he told her, never wanted it to come from the wrong place, but in a moment he realized Rei was never in the wrong place when she said she loved him, even when she was angry. This was who she was. And he loved her for who she was.

He let go of her hand and stepped closer, pulling her to him. When he tipped her head back, she didn’t fight him, even though they were on the stone steps of the opera house and everyone who bothered to look could see. He kissed her and she kissed him, and it didn’t matter if it was the wrong moment, that they were running high from pent up emotions. Loving Rei was right.

“I love you, Rei Hino,” Yukio whispered, pulling away to kiss her cheek, her temple, the corner of her mouth.

“I know,” Rei said. “I just needed to hear it.”

He laughed into her hair. Obstinate woman, she enjoyed mocking him, even when he was vulnerable.

Rei reached for his face. He leaned his cheek into her palm, then turned to kiss her fingers. “I love you to, Yukio,” she said, telling him what he needed to hear.

They turned and walked together, side by side, through the city and the snow.


End file.
